Should We Add a New Category in Our Information?

    Yesterday we had a debate on whether institutions like colleges and universities should somehow ask the students whether they are LGBT students. 

    I was going to vote for no at first but was accidentally put into the yes group. 

    After carefully thinking and discussing with other people in the group, I started to think that it actually is a better choice adding this category as a check box upon personal information. 

    Although some people might think that given this information, students' chances of admission might be jeopardized since people involved on decision making might set different standard on these students. However, I think this is a not only good but even necessary process to identify these students as who they are instead of merely male or female. Otherwise, what is the point of identifying students as male or female anyway? Some might say that people might need statistic data to balance proportions etc. Yet, isn't it important also to add this one other category since people might also want to be informed of this population distribution? Anyway, male and female categories are not enough now so why letting those belonging to neither having a hard time struggling? It took years for women to be admitted to universities and it has been several decades for them to have the same opportunities going to institutions like these. Although there are still unfairness and invisible discrimination in other areas, women's first being allowed in universities, in works and all other areas started by having them being allowed on the application and this process takes years. So, the earlier we start putting a new category in gender variation, the shorter we will have to wait for gender non-normative people to be treated like everyone else.

    Also, as institutions with the world's most important foresights that are leads all prospective changes, universities have the responsibility to again be the pioneers that leads the society to this improvement. Like what we read in Riki Whilchin's essays, people are constantly doing gender because we need that in our daily interactions with other individuals. However, we live in a society that cannot simply ignore the gender issue as we presented in the last paragraph that people do care about it. Also, what we "do" about gender not only stands for who we are but also gives other people a hint to act with respect to each other by avoiding misunderstanding and offense out of ambiguity. So, for people neither male nor female, or people who have different sexual orientations, being able to present it in a "personal info" form is a way of knowing themselves. Secondly, by adding the new category, people will take it as a routine and be more and more comfortable with it and eventually seeing it as everything else we possibly have in today's forms that we have to fill. We even present our race to institutions so why not LGBT? Why are people interested in the distribution of races then? The new category not only give those people who need it a right position but also can make other people simply feel it normal. We have "hard to tell" on Facebook and "other sexual orientation" on Chinese twitter, because people do need that and there is nothing to be shamed of. So why are universities still acting so conservative? Sensitivity? 

    Upon the above, I really think the only categories of "male" and "female" are not enough. Yet, including everything in LGBT or LGBTQIA is not a perfect idea either. In the gender column, we should first add "none of the above" and people really don't have to decide each and every part of the spectrum so  precisely. Also, asking sexual orientation is not necessary in official information collecting. It can be involved in secondary surveys or poles or just simple presenting it as we like, not only is it because people don't actually need to report who they like to be admitted to academic institutions and we don't have to release that information for most occasions now so adding everything together is not only inappropriate but also too fast in a short time. 

ps. The internet broke this morning and it was uploaded unsuccessfully. This is a re-uploaded one. 

Hida Viloria

    

    Yesterday, we saw a video on an unusual woman—Hida Viloria, who was born a girl biologically but had high level of testosterone and an enlarged clitoris. She was suggested to have her clitoris removed like other girls, but her mother, as well as her father who was actually a doctor from Columbia chose not to have their baby girl operated. She grew up as a girl who is more like an aggressive tomboy without knowing anything about her different genitalia and found it out one day in the locker room. She was, unlike most intersexual people, actually very outgoing and popular as a girl in school. Although Hida dated boys at a young age, she found out later that she actually was lesbian at the age of 19, since she “has sex drive that seems more male.” She didn’t found out the word ”intersex” until the age 27, on a bus, where she read this new word and felt like the rest of the world stopped. She then found the right identity and place for her and lived along with it, happily.

    Although she grew up feeling like a different type of girl, she developed fantastic personality and didn’t experience any difficulties interacting with everyone else around her. Her parents, who “didn’t say anything,” raised her up like any other normal girl and it “turned out to be fine.” Hida is a special case in the intersexual individuals. She did experience difficulties finding her identity, though, but that didn’t trouble her as it does to most intersexual people. For her “one of the biggest things to embrace intersex is not choosing a side. Society pressures you to choose a side just like they pressures mixed-race people.” And as Operah said, she “walks between both worlds.” She now owns a degree in Gender and Sexuality from Berkeley(which surprises me), and is living her life on being herself, making money as a public figure who writes articles and books.

    Hida is absolutely a positive case and can be a role model for a lot of intersexual people. A lot of young girls who were born with the problems she has experienced had surgery right after birth because doctors believe the operation is “psychologically better to be done at an earlier age. Children not operated on will have problems in society as we know it today.” This seems quite absurd for me, as well as more and more people who experience function deficiency due to the surgery. Cheryl Chase, who wrote Hermaphordites with Attitude is one example. She was one of those baby girls who experienced the operations, and it turned out that she couldn’t reach orgasm in intimate relationship since her nerve is somehow damaged during the surgery. She didn’t find out the operation until she was 21. Like a lot of people who had this experience, they blame it on the doctors and feel like they, as well as their parents are victimized.

    For Hida, being born as an intersex is blessed right now as she feels people like her are extraordinary. This is really a good inspiration of many intersexual people who are caught in between and need an identity. Hida can be a living role model and her case actually proves it unnecessary to give those operations right after the girls are born. They have a right to choose, and they can be raised normally without worrying about it at the early age. 

    However, although we are happy for Hida, not everyone in her shoe feels the same. She is living her happy life because she has supportive parents with one of them a doctor. She was born confident and outgoing, which other born gender-nonnormal people might not be. She had a friendly community and was able to use media to express her idea. She has a degree from well-know university. Most importantly, she is good-looking. It seems more “forgivable” in her case for the wide public, and she is adored as both a woman and a man, which can be totally different from many other people. She can even be offensive for those who struggle to have one sexual identity and don't want to "embrace both" as they want to be just a woman or man. 

    Anyway, we are happy for Hida to find her place and it is a good thing for her to use her stories to make money while expressing herself and helping other people. Yet, the process of embracing new gender identity can be hard for the society, and painful who are living their life in it. It is going to be a long but necessary process since every evolution takes time and every idea needs it to develop. What we are doing now for sex-nonnormative people today is a bless for the future. All the pain and struggle right now is to let our children and grandchildren avoid them. 

Video:

Credit-Hida on Operah-youtube

SHE is Lijing

    Taiwanese celebrity Lijing is a famous hostess known as one of the "three queens and one king" in the area of hosts of Taiwan TV world. As one of the queens, Lijing is know for her biting style that stimulates the audience's reactions.  Although all of these seems quite normal, what's different about her is that she was actually born as a bisexual child to a fairly rich family in Taiwan. She was initially raised as a boy with an ordinary boy's name since she was the only boy after her sister. It didn't take that long for her to feel uncomfortable living as a boy and she developed tremendous worship for the feminine characteristics she got from observing her mother. Like most bisexual kids, she had a horrible life being unable to live as who she wanted to be in the early years. What's more, although she confessed everything to her parents, it was hard for them to take that, not only because she was the only "boy" in the family to take on responsibilities, but also because she was born in the year of 1962, when it was quite early for people to accept the existence of bisexual kids in China. 

    After long time of depression, she finally decided to commit a suicide and swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills at the age of 19. Fortunately, she was saved afterwards. She cried and said to her dad that maybe it is better to have a good daughter than losing a son, and that was when her father finally realized how much he loved her and agreed with her surgery to remove the male organs. She was then reborn. 

After only a short period she was discovered to host a TV shopping show and got outstanding achievement. She then also started her own TV shows and were loved by the audience. She was still loved by the public even after an accident and her voice cord was hurt, changing her voice not as attractive. She dated boys and really had a normal life as a woman afterwards by keeping fighting. When Lijing was forced to reveal her sex-changing past by the media, her husband came out and strongly supported her in the public. Also, the audience didn't care much about her history and went on loving her and her shows. Although she faced incredible pressure but things went on just fine. It was a shocking fact how much people can actually take at that time and Lijing, as a person who had experienced difficulties with her sexual identity, helped the whole Taiwan sex-nonnormaltive society as a role model. 

                                                       *Lijing with her husband

    Lijing's case is a typical one in the area. Her unremitting fight eventually brought her success and rights to live happily as herself. Yet, there are still a lot of things for us to think about. What if she didn't have the money to do the surgery? What if her dad didn't accept her as who she was? What if she didn't become a beloved celebrity? Would people still accept her just as they did when she was famous? What's the public's tolerance on the case when it was a normal person around them? How is Lijing's case going to be like in the U.S. society? 

What I think is that, maybe things are not that complicated. If we don't put pressure on sexual non-normal people and don't put over policing on them, they would't form any threat to everyone else as they are normal people and they have no reason to do so. Also, in that case there is no need to feel fear about them. To make a change, someone has to start up first with confidence and trusts in each other. Why do they have to be the ones who tries first? Maybe it is time for us to make a big change.